Synonyms for merest
- bare
- minor
- pure
- sheer
- simple
- common
- entire
- little
- plain
- poor
- small
- bald
- blunt
- complete
- insignificant
- pure and simple
- stark
- unadorned
- unadulterated
- unmitigated
- unmixed
- utter
- very
Antonyms for merest
- decorated
- indefinite
- uncertain
- abnormal
- big
- enormous
- excellent
- extraordinary
- great
- huge
- immense
- important
- large
- superior
- uncommon
EXAMPLES FROM THE WEB FOR MEREST
Aggie sniffed, as if such an outcome were the merest bagatelle.
On another, it might have appeared perhaps the merest trifle garish.
He tells lies like a woman, for the pleasure of it, for the merest trifle.
It was the merest chance in the world that Porter went up at all.
It seemed that he saw the merest ghost of a flicker in Murray's left eye.
What you says, Dave, is the merest picture of that joorist.'
That, however, is merest surmise, an' in a manner onimportant.
He tapped lightly on a door and it was opened the merest crack.
But in this instant, the merest touch was enough to save him.
It was the merest accident that he did not miss us and lose his passage.
WORD ORIGIN
c.1400, "unmixed, pure," from Old French mier "pure" (of gold), "entire, total, complete," and directly from Latin merus "unmixed" (of wine), "pure; bare, naked;" figuratively "true, real, genuine," probably originally "clear, bright," from PIE *mer- "to gleam, glimmer, sparkle" (cf. Old English amerian "to purify," Old Irish emer "not clear," Sanskrit maricih "ray, beam," Greek marmarein "to gleam, glimmer"). Original sense of "nothing less than, absolute" (mid-15c., now only in vestiges such as mere folly) existed for centuries alongside opposite sense of "nothing more than" (1580s, e.g. a mere dream).